Pear Oat Bran Muffins

Recently I borrowed “The 250 Best Muffin Recipes” by Esther Brod from the local library. I don’t know if they are the best muffin recipes unless I try each recipe but the variety is really very good though. Actually it has bonus 250 recipes, so totally 500 muffin recipes in one book, with a lot of healthy recipes too. I was amazed by the collection of recipes using oatmeal, oat bran, wheat bran, whole wheat flour and wheat germ. It should easily reach at least 100-150 recipes. Especially there are a lot of oatmeal and oat bran muffins recipes. Since this month’s Whole Grain Baking theme is Oats, I decided to proceed with the Apple Walnut Oat Bran Muffins. (Please note that Oat bran alone is not whole grain, but for this event I’m accepting recipes with oat bran also). I had some bland pears in the fridge and nobody was willing to eat it so decided to use it instead of apple (more about this in the Taste and My Notes section). I have also used apple cider vinegar instead of the egg whites mentioned in the original recipe.

Preheat oven to 400F/200C for 15 minutes. Grease a muffin tin or use paper liners.

In a large bowl combine together all the dry ingredients (from whole wheat flour to grated pear).

In a measuring mug, measure the buttermilk. Add 1/4 cup water, vinegar, vanilla extract and oil. Whisk together. Dissolve the brown sugar in this liquid mixture and blend it well with a fork.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, stirring just until moistened. Do not over mix.

Fill the batter in each muffin cup to the top. Sprinkle a teaspoon of oatmeal on each cup.

Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the muffin comes out clean. Mine was done in 16 minutes.

Leave it in the pan for 10-15 minutes. Then transfer it to a cooling rack.

Taste:

I couldn’t wait for more than an hour to taste the muffins. I was expecting some sort of raw taste/smell from the whole wheat pastry flour and the oat bran. Surprise! it didn’t taste weird at all. In fact the muffins had a very good texture. The only thing missing was sweetness. It was very mild. I used a pear which was not sweet by itself, maybe that was the reason. But we liked it because we generally don’t eat very sweet stuff and my husband told me that these were the best muffins I have ever baked. My son who has a sweet tooth enjoyed these oat bran muffins very much.

These muffins were very filling too. Unlike the empty calories-sugary muffins, I did not feel like reaching for another one. So these muffins don’t disappear fast and I stored it in the fridge. It becomes little hard if stored in the fridge. So heat it in the microwave oven for 30-35 seconds before eating it and it’s moist again like freshly baked.

My Notes:

Taste the fruit you are going to use, whether it is apple or pear. The pear I used was very bland, that’s why I wanted to use it up because no one wanted to eat it. I should have anticipated that the muffins will also not be sweet enough. So add another 1/4 cup of sugar if the fruit you are using is not sweet.

The original recipe used 1 cup of all purpose flour and 1 cup of whole wheat flour. So if you don’t have whole wheat pastry flour go with this blend.

If you are a cinnamon fan use 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon and omit the vanilla extract (as per the original recipe).

The recipe clearly asked to fill the batter to the top of the cup. I was not sure about this because usually muffin recipes mention 2/3rds full. I thought that it would overflow while baking and the muffins will get stuck to each other. Except for 4 muffins I did not fill it to the top. So I got 12 regular size muffins and had some batter left which was enough for 6 mini muffins. The 4 muffins which I had filled to the top rose beautifully and it did not stick to the other muffins. So if you fill the entire cup there should not be any batter left and the given measurement should yield exactly 12 regular size muffins.

If baking as mini muffins 8-10 minutes should be enough. I baked mine for 10 minutes and it was already very dark in the bottom.

For a whole wheat vegan muffin, I am very pleased with the result! The information along with the recipe was well appreciated too.

I made slight adjustments – I used quick oats instead of oat bran, I used 1/2 tsp cinnamon and a big pinch of allspice, a bit less walnuts but an added 2 tbsp raisins, 1/4 cup of molasses-tasting brown sugar that didn’t really pack down, 1 1/2 cups of normal milk, 4 tbsp oil instead of 5, and I used 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar and no water.

I baked them at 375 because I don’t entirely trust my oven. I baked them both as cupcakes and muffins and the muffins rose beautifully, the cupcakes a little less so. They are very tasty though barely sweet. I would definitely make again using this base recipe.

I discovered your blog recently and I just love it. I have egg allergy and am always looking out for eggless baking. I want to try this muffin but can you please tell me what is oat bran? What is the substitute for it? I have quick oats, though

Thanks Sadaf. Oat bran is the outer covering of the oat grain. In Canada and US we get it in the hot cereals aisle next to oats, cracked wheat etc. I guess using quick cooking oats in this recipe should not be a problem. Do try it and let me know how it turns out.